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Bradford opinion. June 6, 1874, Image 1

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National Opinion, Bradford Opinion and The United Opinion

Readers in eastern Orange County, Vermont and northwestern Grafton County, New Hampshire have been served by the weekly Opinion since 1865. Araunah A. Earle, who had been responsible for the Orleans Independent Standard in northern Vermont, started the National Opinion in Bradford in 1865, but by October 1866 he had repurchased the Standard and returned to Barton. His editor and business partner, David W. Cobb, purchased the paper and published it until 1874, joined briefly by William H. H. Earle. In 1874, the Bradford Publishing Company hired Ben F. Stanton as publisher and editor. He changed the paper's name to the Bradford Opinion. Unrecorded difficulties, most likely financial, led to the simultaneous publication of competing weeklies from 1879 to 1881. The Orange County Publishing Company maintained the Bradford Opinion, while Stanton countered with Stanton's Bradford Opinion.

The acrimonious rivalry ended in November 1881 when Harry E. Parker acquired both papers. Parker continued the weekly as the United Opinion and also issued a daily. Only two issues of the Daily Opinion survive, but it appears to have been published from at least 1881 through December 1884. Parker was involved with the Opinion for 47 years. His daughter, Sara K. Parker, was listed on the masthead as associate editor from 1909 to 1924 and later as the president of the Opinion Publishing Company. In 1916, a national trade journal mentioned that she was one of only two women editors in Vermont. For many years, the Parker family spent the winter in Florida, and Harry Parker shared enthusiastic descriptions of Miami's booming development and his Florida business ventures, social activities, and travels in a weekly "Letter from the Southland."

Stephen M. Kelley purchased the Opinion in 1929 and sold it six years later to J. Glen Sault, whose wife and son joined him in the operation. Gardner Boyd took over in the summer of 1947, but his tenure was cut short by a disastrous fire in December 1947. Following the fire, John Drysdale published the Opinion in conjunction with the White River Valley Herald until 1970, when it was sold and consolidated with the North Country Journal, a Woodsville, New Hampshire paper. During the next eight years, the paper was issued under three titles, including the North Country Journal Opinion, the Journal-Opinion, and the United Opinion, before the publishers settled on the Journal-Opinion, the name still on the masthead in 2014.

Since 1867, when D.W. Cobb promised to "secure all items of local interest," the Opinion'spublishers and editors have been committed to producing a strong local paper. In the 21st century, the paper continues to provide "good, local news" to more than 10,000 readers each week. One notable local topic that the Opinion has covered during its long run is copper mining, an important part of the Orange County economy from 1809 to 1958. The paper includes articles about mine operations, investors, and workers, as well as about more recent efforts to mitigate environmental pollution and preserve an important historic landscape.